Your Best Spicy Soup Recipes Please

I've come down with a nasty head cold and am craving something really spicy and flavourful in the form of a soup. Last night I made a nice jerk chicken soup that hit the spot but I'm looking for something different for tonight. If you have any great recipes or suggestions please share. No need to type out the full recipe, just the basics would be most appreciated.

One of our favorite soups -- I make this almost every week! This is a recipe I learned from my aunt on my last visit to Malaysia last year.

In a food processor, chop about 1 medium onion, ginger, and 3-4 cloves garlic. heat some oil in a pot and when it's hot, add 2-3 tbsp. of chili paste -- the pureed kind in the plastic jar with the green lid. Alternatively, you can puree some fresh red chillis in the onion mix. When the chili paste fries for a minute, dump in your pureed onion mix. Toss in a star anise, an inch piece of cinnamon stick and 1 tsp or so of fennel seed. Fry this until the onions start to brown slightly. While it's frying, cut up some chicken pieces into small 2 inch pieces, bone in preferably for the flavor. I use a meat cleaver and cut the pieces into bite size pieces. I take the skin off, but you can leave it on too. When the onions are browned slightly, add 1 medium tomato, chopped and fry for another few minutes, then add about 2 tbsp of coriander powder, some red chilli powder (like cayenne), and about 1/2 tsp of cumin powder. Add salt and about 1 tsp of black pepper too. Then add your chicken pieces and continue to fry until the chicken is sealed and browned. Add water and cover and simmer for about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. After 30 min, add some sliced carrots, and cubed potatoes. Cover again and cook another 20-30 minutes.

Sauté minced onion, carrot, celery, garlic in some olive oil. Add some tomato paste and chicken broth, then butter beans and chickpeas (either cooked from dry or canned and rinsed) and a dollop of harissa. Bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, chop the chard stems and slice the leaves separately. Add the stems for a few minutes, then the leaves fairly briefly. Absolutely delicious! I like mine pretty spicy so I use a fair amount of harissa but you can always add a bit more once it’s in your bowl if everyone doesn’t like it really spicy. (You can also use kale but I did it with savoy cabbage once and it wasn’t nearly as good.)

GretchenS, thanks so much for posting this recipe! I made it last week with Christmas Lima beans and Dinosaur Kale and it was delicious! I did not have prepared harissa, but I vaguely remembered a Deborah Madison recipe and quickly hand pounded some, subbing chili flakes for whatever chile Ms. Madison recommends. I often make spicy bean and greens soups like this, but with chipotle in adobo in place of harissa and oh my what a big difference! It hit the spot. Still have some harissa left and picked up beautiful chard at the farmer's market yesterday, so we are looking forward to an encore this week! Thanks much! :-)